Thermosetting polymers from epoxy resin and a Nickel catalyst of diethylenetriamine

The kinetics and mechanism of cure reaction of DGEBA using a chelate of Ni(II) with diethylenetriamine (dien), Ni(dien)₂I_2, as a curing agent was studied by DSC. TG curve of the complex curing agent showed mass loss in two region of temperature: 200–320 and 450–550 °C. Dynamic DSC measurements showed only one exothermic peak with a maximum about 250 °C depending on the heating rate. According to the methods of KAS and Ozawa–Flynn–Wall the values of E _a were 92.5 and 96.2 kJ/mol, respectively. The isoconversional kinetic analysis in whole range of conversion, α = 0.02–0.95, showed small changes in the E _a values in the region of α = 0.04–0.6 and most likely represent some average values (E _a = 110 kJ/mol) between the values of E _a of non-autocatalyzed and autocatalyzed reactions. Using the sole dependence of E _a on α, the time required to reach fully cured materials under isothermal conditions were also predicted and compared with the experimental results.